Early Intermediate Repertoire – Page 2

Jakub Metelka • Puppet Theatre

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Jakub Metelka is one of the notable new names contributing to the burgeoning piano education literature in recent years. His distinctive music stands out by avoiding clichés, presenting imaginative and thoughtful challenge, earning him recognition as a significant voice in the developing pianist’s repertoire.

I have reviewed all three of Metelka’s previous collections:

Jakub Metelka: Modern Piano Studies

These imaginative and appealing miniatures cover every major and minor key, addressing important aspects of technique and notation-reading at upper intermediate level.

Jakub Metelka: Little Virtuoso

Metelka has created a superb resource for the ‘Little Virtuosos’ of the title: I cannot think of another collection that so imaginatively caters for eager youngsters who have quickly reached early advanced level.

Jakub Metelka • The Secret Garden

Jakob Metelka’s ‘Secret Garden’ presents 15 “modern nocturnes” for prodigious youngsters, and is thus a more lyrical counterpoint to his ‘Little Virtuoso’ collection. And these pieces are again superb…

Metelka’s pieces often have a clear learning objective, combined with appealing musical content. But many of them prove to be rather harder to play than first impressions suggest: he clearly aims to challenge learners, while expanding their musical understanding, technique, and expressive engagement.

Now he brings us a fourth collection. Puppet Theatre is aimed at less advanced players, delivering his easiest pieces to date. But are they really all that easy, or is Metelka up to his usual tricks? Let’s find out!

Debbie Wiseman • Ten

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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By happy coincidence, in the same week that Pianodao celebrated the site’s tenth anniversary, so too Debbie Wiseman’s new piano album Ten appeared. It was a special pleasure to attend the launch event hosted by Presto Music in partnership with publishers Faber Music, at which the composer introduced and performed from the collection.

Debbie Wiseman is undoubtedly one of Britain’s most popular and distinguished living composers. This year she celebrates ten years as Classic FM Composer in Residence, and her new solo piano album brings together ten of her best-loved compositions in new arrangements, together with a brand new ‘bonus’ piece, Ten Years Forward.

The recording is now available from Silva Screen, and can be streamed online on major platforms. Faber Music’s sheet music publication to tie in with this is both an accurate transcription, and suitable for intermediate players.

Subtitled “Memories for solo piano”, I suspect the music book may prove to be one of the year’s most essential and popular new repertoire titles…

Ben Crosland’s Jazz Beans!

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Ben Crosland’s Magic Beans for elementary players was one of the very first (and remains one of the best) music books to be reviewed on Pianodao, and in that review (which you can read here) I mentioned other Beans books in the series, Cool Beans and Easy Beans, concluding:

“To summarise, the ‘Beans’ publications establish Ben Crosland as a major voice in educational composing. The whole series is outstanding, and ‘Magic Beans’ easily lives up to the very high standards set by its predecessors.”

Crosland has subsequently concentrated on developing his career composing reflective contemporary pieces in the style popularised by Ludovico Einaudi and others.

Returning with new educational publications, Crosland’s Jazz Beans! series marks a welcome reappearance of three books which were previously published as Get Set Jazz, freshly baked for the Beans series. Suitable for Easy (Grades 0-2), Intermediate (2-4), and Advanced (4-7) players respectively, let’s find out how they taste…

Phillip Keveren • Twelve Serenades

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Phillip Keveren remains best known for his superb piano arrangements of popular, show tune, and movie themes, published as The Phillip Keveren Series by Hal Leonard worldwide.

However, Keveren has of late been composing more of his own solo piano music, written with a musical voice that combines his assimilation of popular styles with a penchant for the relaxing contemporary classical music that is so ubiquitous today, and with significant hints of Copland’s harmonic style.

2019’s superb intermediate collection Piano Calm (reviewed here) paved the way for the more pedagogically driven (but also excellent in my view) Circles (reviewed here), which comprises a “character etude” in each and every one of the 24 standard major and minor keys.

With the more recent So Far… (reviewed here) Keveren delivered compositions for more advanced players, about which I wrote:

“These pieces are a joy to play, life-affirming even, and offer a delicious contrast to much of the more serious music that developing players might be practising as they progress through the higher grades and into the concert repertoire.”

Keveren’s latest music, written for early intermediate players (around UK Grades 3-4) and titled Twelve Serenades, is a set of short evocative pieces that journey through the twelve key centres on the piano, while also serving as lullabies intended for media licensing.

In short, the music here combines the soft, melodic ambience of Piano Calm with the pedagogic intent of Circles. But let’s take a closer look…

Prokofiev • Musiques d’enfants

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Over the last three decades, few music collections have been used in my teaching as regularly and consistently as Prokofiev’s Musiques d’enfants. The simple joy of these twelve intermediate level pieces (UK Grades 3-5) is that they so brilliantly combine genuine creative invention, immediacy of appeal, and immense pedagogic value.

Until now, the go-to edition has been the “Authentic Edition” from Boosey & Hawkes, who owned the distribution rights. Theirs is an attractively presented, reliable, and perfectly usable version, but not entirely without issues. Aside from a couple of tricky passages for which the composer added fingering, none is provided; nor are English translations for the French titles. The introduction and composer biography by Peter Donohoe are neither child-friendly, nor pedagogically insightful for teachers.

With Prokofiev’s music now out of copyright, others are quickly bringing editions to market. Edition Peters have reissued their own earlier version, which in common with the Boosey & Hawkes edition is accurate but rather basic, albeit English titles are added, and their edition benefits from being printed on cream paper.

Now a brand new edition has appeared in the Schott Student Edition series, edited and featuring superb fingering suggestions throughout by the ever-impressive Monika Twelsiek. With English and German translations for the piece titles, a useful Preface, and detailed Teaching Notes for each of the twelve pieces, I think that this is now the edition to go for…

Willis Student Recital Collection

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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My latest piano collection for Willis Music Company is a bumper anthology which builds on the success of the Graded Gillock series and Naoko Ikeda Graded Collection, and features 40 pieces written by composers from across the leading publisher’s best-selling catalogue.

This collection focuses on performance pieces, suitable for studio recitals, school concerts, and local music events. With that in mind, I have particularly sought out music which is both inspiring for the learner to play, and enjoyable for audiences.

The pieces appear in progressive order, Elementary to Late Intermediate, UK Grades 1-6. The full list appears below, and to give you a taste of the superb music in this bumper anthology, I have recorded a playlist of 15 out of the 40 pieces:

My First Handel

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Schott Music’s My First Composers series, put together by Wilhelm Ohmen, have been with us for some time now, and I have previously reviewed several titles here.

The most recent to appear, My First Handel repeats the trick of several previous titles in the series, delivering a superbly curated and presented collection of intermediate pieces by a great keyboard composer whose contribution to the repertoire is often, and too easily overlooked.

And once again, this is a music compilation which doesn’t have an obvious rival in the piano education catalogue, so let’s take a serious look…

Chaminade • Album des enfants

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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I have previously heaped praise on the Schott Student Edition, a set of tastefully produced and superbly edited publications presenting core and lesser-known pedagogic repertoire in an attractive, affordable and contemporary format for today’s learners.

Designed for use in instrumental teaching, with titles projected to range from easy beginner music to more advanced repertoire, this is a superb series, and you can browse my previous reviews here.

Schott Music have recently added several interesting new titles to the series, and I will be looking at each in turn over the coming weeks.

One of the undoubted highlights, and the subject of this review, the much-respected editor Monika Twelsiek has selected twelve delicious highlights from Cécile Chaminade’s Album des enfants to delight today’s learners…